


Challenger: 1970

by ArmsofWar



Series: The Challenger Series [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childhood, Gen, Speech Disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:49:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1735148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArmsofWar/pseuds/ArmsofWar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a small town on a small road sit five little houses. Castiel, five years old, stares in horror at what he has done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Challenger: 1970

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt to write Supernatural fic. Thanks are owed entirely to deeleybopper for her encouragement.

On a narrow road called Sweetheart Lane just outside of Lawrence, Kansas, sat five little houses.

Each little house surrounded itself with a massive lawn, but not one had a fence. The yards bled into each other in a mottled bed of green and brown grass. It was twenty-five minutes from town, and at night the sounds of crickets were as loud as any city street. At the end of the road was a small stream leaving the occupants of Sweetheart Lane to have very little escape but to go out on the highway and drive somewhere else for company.

The afternoon, early-summer sun beat down on Sweetheart Lane. Bugs had come out of hiding and were buzzing happily in the trees and amongst the weeds.

Castiel stared in horror at what he had done.

“I'm sowwy, Dean,” he whispered, his voice catching as his hands grabbed helplessly at his space helmet—made by his brilliant older brother, Gabriel, out of cardboard and glue. He watched Dean's eyes shimmer and his bottom lip tremble, and stood silently, terrified.

“My rocket ship,” Dean said, bending over to pick up the cardboard toy, also made by Gabriel, which Castiel had accidentally smashed by tripping over one of the roots of the large oak tree in Mr. Singer's backyard. It lay in two big, squished pieces on the ground.

“I can fix it!” Castiel said, his own eyes filling with tears and cascading down puffy, red cheeks. He reached out to grab the destroyed rocket from Dean who, with a shout, yanked his hands away from him.

“No! Don't touch it! Go away!” Dean shouted. Seeing Dean upset made Castiel's eyes burn and his tears began to soak into his space helmet. Dean gently pulled off his own helmet and cradled the ship in his arms.

Castiel ran away, stumbling over the root again in his misery. His knee stung and his face burned as he ran out of Mr. Singer's yard and up to his house. He threw open the back door and found Michael sitting at the kitchen table doing homework. Castiel stopped short and held his breath.

“Castiel,” Michael said, not looking away from his homework. “Why are you crying?”

“Wuh's Gabe?” Castiel asked, choking back sobs.

“Say his full name, Castiel,” Michael said, ignoring Castiel's distress in favor of trying to fix “That darn speech impediment of his!” as his parents and siblings often tried to do. Gabriel was his favorite brother by far, but trying to say his name made Castiel's shoes feel too small. Starting to hyperventilate, he tried to sound out the word. 

“Gabwie—Gabwiewl,” he whispered, then sobbed. “Oh Michael! I need Gabe, I need Gabe!”

Michael refused to budge. “Not until you say his name correctly, Castiel. We do not give things to people who do not bother to speak correctly.”

Castiel moaned and shouted. “Gabe! Gabe!” Shouting was not allowed in the house, and Michael immediately attempted to quiet his five year old brother, but Castiel was not having it as he ripped through the house, shouting in agony.

When Castiel found Gabriel sitting in his room working by the light of his desk lamp, he propelled himself into his older brother like a missile.

“Cas, Cas!” Gabriel said, surprised at the sudden onslaught of a sobbing five year old. He turned away from his desk and bent down to wrap his arms around his little brother. “What happened? I thought you were playing spaceships with Dean?” That question brought on another wave of wailing as Castiel buried his face into his brother's shirt. Gabriel picked him up, as the little boy was still remarkably small for his age, and saw their neighbor Dean Winchester sitting in Mr. Singer's backyard with the remains of what seemed to be a broken rocket ship in his hands. With a sigh, Gabriel rubbed Castiel's back and waited until the boy's hysterics subsided into hiccups.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Gabriel asked, quietly.

Cas immediately shook his head. Gabriel heaved himself and his brother onto his bed and allowed the boy to settle on his lap. Cas sniffled and hiccuped but otherwise did not reveal a thing.

“Come on, buddy,” he encouraged. Castiel let out a quiet moan and then said.

“I twipped,” he whispered. “I bwoke Dean's wocket ship, and now...now...” he sniffled and buried his face in Gabriel's shirt. Gabriel knew well enough what Castiel was thinking, considering the past three homes they moved into in the past year-and-a-half and his little brother's reluctance to make friends in the first place.

“Let's go out and see what the damage is, okay?” Gabriel said. Castiel moaned and buried his face in Gabriel's shirt again, but Gabriel was not having any more of that. “Hey now, don't you think Dean is a little upset right now? He might want his friend to be there to help him.”

“He told me to get away!” Castiel said.

“He didn't mean forever!” Gabriel replied, wiping the tears and snot from his brother's face with his sleeve. “I think he'll be even more sad if his friend doesn't make sure he's okay.”

Castiel glanced up in Gabriel's face, for a moment concerned. “He will?” he asked. Gabriel nodded and, taking a breath for courage, Cas hopped off his brother's lap. He waited determinedly for his brother to take his hand, which Gabriel did with more than a little smirk on his face, before they exited the house.

Dean was still sitting where Castiel had left him, tears gone but looking bereft. When he heard Castiel and Gabriel coming he glanced up, bursting to his feet as he ran over to Castiel and wrapped his arms around the boy tightly. Castiel's lips made an 'O' of surprise and Gabriel stepped away to survey the damage of his cardboard creation.

“Why did you leave?” Dean asked, upset.

“I...” Castiel did not know what to say. He shrugged.

“You can't leave a mission, Cas,” Dean said, sounding disappointed, “especially one as dangerous as this one!”

Castiel looked down at his feet, embarrassed. “I thought you wuh mad at me,” he mumbled.

The boys were distracted by Gabriel coming up to and squatting in front of them with the rocket pieces in his hands. “Now,” he said, gravely, “it looks like it will need some serious remodeling. The propulsion system is bust and the holding area needs to be entirely restructured.”

“Will the space men be alwight?” Cas asked, fearfully.

Gabriel was about to answer when Dean stepped in, saying, “Of course they will! Remember? We put them in the space lab when the...the meteor hit!”

“We did?” Castiel asked sceptically.

“Yep!” Dean said with a grin, and wraps an arm around his friend's shoulders to assure him. “So they will be safe until the ship is repaired, right Gabe?”

“That's right, champ,” Gabriel said. He watched for his brother's reaction. Castiel did not look completely convinced but as time has proven to Gabe over and over again, leave the boy with Dean Winchester and all his worries eventually melted away. “So let me get started on this and it should be done by playtime tomorrow.”

The boys nodded solemnly and Gabriel took the cardboard mess to his room.

Castiel and Dean, bereft of their rocket ship, took their helmets only slightly sodden by tears and imagined themselves already on the moon like Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.

“Buzz! Buzz do you hear me?” Dean shouted from across Mr. Singer's yard.

“Ten fo' ten fo'!” Castiel shouted back. They jumped around the yard, careful to avoid the big oak tree, and made appropriate booping and beeping noises until they fell to the grass in a five year old heap of giggles.

When they calmed down, they lay side by side on Mr. Singer's lawn and stared up at the slowly darkening sky. “Someday, we'll be up there,” Dean said.

“You think so?” Castiel asked.

“Of course!” Dean said, indignantly. “We're the best astronauts in all of Kansas.”

“You awh,” Castiel responded, “But I'm just a meteow.” He thought gloomily of his incident just a little while ago. Dean glanced at him, confused, and Castiel clapped his hands together with a crashing "Bshh!" sound.

“No way!” Dean said, flipping onto his stomach so he could look fully at his friend, who stared woefully at the sky. He poked Castiel.

“Stop that!” Castiel said. Dean stared at him until Castiel couldn't take it any more and stared back. “What?” he asked.

“I can't go to space without you,” Dean said. “I don't want to.”

Castiel's big blue eyes went even wider. “Weally?” he asked, quietly.

Dean turned again to lie on his back and face the deep blue twilight sky. “Of course! Who else would I bring?” he asked.

“Sam?” Castiel asked. Dean blew a raspberry at the thought.

“He's a baby!” he said. “And he smells. No way.”

Castiel smiled up at the sky and watched as the stars began to glimmer overhead.

“Even if I did have someone else,” Dean said, “I would want to bring you.”

Castiel glanced at his friend, who was now determinedly looking away from him. Dean cupped his hands around his eyes like a telescope to stare at the stars. Castiel followed suit, obediently.

“Okay,” Castiel said, “Awhl come with you.”

The squeaky hinges of the Winchester house's front door sung loud enough to be heard across the street.

“Dean! Supper!” Mrs. Winchester hollered from the porch. Dean sighed and got up.

“Gotta go,” he said. Castiel nodded and his friend hurried away. He lay there another few moments as the stars twinkled into full view.

“Cas!” Gabriel shouted from his bedroom window. “Best get inside, now.”

Castiel sat up and, with one final glance at the sky, hurried home.

**Author's Note:**

> For those who are curious, Castiel has Rhotacism. I would love feedback about his speech, which I sounded out based on a child I work with who has the same speech impediment.


End file.
